IBM Employee and Investor Issues Summary Highlights for Week Ending September 30, 2000

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  Pension Lawsuit Win
  July 26, 2003
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Highlights for week ending September 30, 2000

Wall Street Journal: Retirement-Savings Bill Draws Fire for Proposals. (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader). (Editor: excellent article, don't miss!) "Some unions, including the Communication Workers of America and the AFL-CIO, are objecting to certain cash-balance pension measures that appeared in the Senate version several weeks ago. Those provisions would help employers fight legal challenges to their cash-balance plans and continue the practice of "wearing away" the early-retirement subsidies of older workers, a practice to which the Treasury objects."

The cash-balance measures also are drawing the ire of grass-roots groups, who are pelting elected officials with complaints. "A number of them are up for re-election in tight races, and they'll hear about it at election time," says Janet Kruger, a spokeswoman for an employee coalition. The AARP, the Pension Rights Center, the National Senior Citizen's Law Center, the National Urban League and the Center for Budget and Policy Priority also oppose major measures in the package.
Washington Times: Pension Protection Astray? "Although the Senate version of the proposed legislation includes some potentially helpful provisions, the vast majority of the benefits go almost entirely to upper-income taxpayers, a relatively small group that is already well prepared for retirement."
San Francisco Bay-Guardian Editorial by Ralph Nader: Pension Takeaway: Stop Corporate Schemes To Undermine Pension Benefits. "At a time when CEOs are paying themselves exorbitant salaries, stock options, and benefit packages, corporations are slashing the pension benefits of workers who have helped build their companies. The most heinous of the pension takeaway schemes include switching to cash balance plans (which deprive workers of expected benefit increases from their final years of company employment), changing pension formulas with obscure "modifications" that are really cuts, and "wearaway," which can force employees to work many additional years to increase pension benefits beyond previously established levels..."
Open letter to Capitol Hill from IEBAC requesting Senate to Vote "NO" to Sen. Roth's pension proposals & "YES" to Sen. Harkin's Amendment. "When the Senate Finance Committee unanimously passed the markup of HR 1102, they probably did not realize they essentially gave a green light to one of the largest financial scandals in history."
Good news regarding an appointee to the ERISA Advisory Council, an organization largely controlled by large corporations.
Binghamton (NY) Press & Sun-Bulletin. IBM logging plans anger protesters. Spokesman says cutting will be 'selective'. "'It's the oldest forest around here, it does not need to be developed and IBM doesn't need to get a couple thousand dollars for trees,' said Orion Hamchuk, a Binghamton University freshman and member of the Student Environmental Action Coalition."
InfoWorld: IBM singing the Blues. (Scroll down to middle of page.) "Now as the third quarter comes to a close with projections of a mediocre to poor-profit picture, several internal sources are saying that more layoffs are planned for early to mid-October and that they will be much more dramatic than this summer's."
Andy Lang explains how cash balance conversions can be used to mask massive pension reductions. "The use of such an old trick has a name: it's called taking advantage of the public's lack of understanding of the time value of money..."
CPR pointer to Quicken Web site article about IBM borrowing 1.25 Billion Euros.
Janet Krueger explains her Republican background, including her family's history with the Republican party, and why she's now a Democrat.
Up-state New York employees are invited to attend Candidates' Night sponsored by the Alliance@IBM on Wednesday October 4 at 6:00 PM, at the Best Western Hotel on Route 9 in Poughkeepsie.
San Francisco Chronicle: Law Shouldn't Allow High-Tech Industry To Indenture Immigrants. "When he left India for Silicon Valley, Singh said, he thought he would find a good job. Instead, he found a high-tech sweatshop."
The Standard: Pulling Out the Gray Hairs. "Heard in a job interview (by phone) this week: 'We're a casual, young, laid back group. Do you think you could fit in?'" "Do online companies discriminate against older workers? If they don't, how come so few seniors work in the Internet Economy?" Note the stats at the bottom.
Get Inside the Head of Lou Gerstner. Mystery and intrigue from Lou Shadow. If you know what this means, please let me know! Followup from Lou Shadow.
Discharged unfairly by IBM? See recommendation from Janet Krueger.

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." — Franklin D. Roosevelt

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